No fed-prov agreement on Canada Job Grant: Kenney

A highly anticipated meeting meant to bring Ottawa and provinces closer together on the Canada Job Grant has not resulted in an agreement, federal employment minister Jason Kenney said Friday.

After a full day of what he called “full and frank exchange” on how to fund the $300 million program, Kenney said the two sides were still at an impasse.

“We didn’t reach an agreement,” Kenney told reporters late afternoon Friday at the close of the meeting, held in Toronto. But he said, “I think we may have the basis of a positive discussion going forward.”

Kenney said he remains committed to “flexibility” on implementing the grant – meant to fund skilled training programs for Canadians – and has offered provinces two key concessions on the program. The first, Kenney said, would allow provinces to pay for the grant from an existing federal transfer, while the second would allow employers to pay less than one third of the $15,000 grant.

Announced in April, the job grant was conceived to divert $300 million from a $500 million federal transfer to provinces toward the grant. The individual grant was to be financed equal parts by Ottawa, employers and provinces, and would come online in phases starting April next year.

Provinces have united against the plan over its funding formula, however, vowing to reject any proposal that strips money away from the $500 million Labour Market Agreement transfer. The money is used to train aboriginals, disabled and illiterate people – populations provinces say can’t be abandoned.

Friday’s meeting was the first face-to-face discussion between the two sides on how to move forward with the proposal; both parties were looking for compromises on the way the grant is funded.

While that compromise fell flat, Kenney said that to ease provincial burdens of having to pay one third of the grant cost, he would allow provinces to tap into another federal transfer – $1 billion in Labour Market Development money – instead. He also said small businesses who can’t afford their one third payment will be allowed to contribute only ten per cent.

Still, Kenney’s favors were too little for provinces, who reiterated after the meeting they would not support a program that slashed LMA training funds.

“Anyway you slice, cut or say it,” Ontario skills minister Brad Duguid said, “the fact of the matter is the current proposal still [strips] $300 million of the programs that prove to be working that serve our marginal populations.”

Kenney said he took provincial concerns “seriously,” but that the federal government was already providing funds for under-represented demographics through other programs.

He said he would entertain alternate funding proposals from provinces, but that so far, “that’s the offer we’ve put on the table.”

Premiers will next tackle the issue Nov 15, when they meet for the Council of the Federation meeting in Toronto.